*Hi! My husband and I have been married for nearly a year now and it has taken me this long to formulate this post. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you so much for taking the time to look!

Questions:1) Am I doing anything majorly wrong? (besides having school loans and a car loan) My excel spreadsheet says I am currently at 74% stocks and 26% bonds. The bond chunk is mostly from my husband's 401K. 2) Where should I put my HSA money as it accumulates?3) If my husband and I were to each contribute to backdoor IRA, should I put the money in stocks? If so, increase my allocation to bonds in our 401K/403b?

1. I don't think you're doing anything majorly wrong, but I think that you should consider a few things. Not sure what you're gross income is, but I would suggest that if you can lower it to the 25% bracket through 401k contributions you should start paying off the student loans with any extra cashflow. 5.5% is pretty high in today's environment and saving yourself that interest expense is a far better return that you can safely achieve right now. The car loan at 1.9% isn't going to make much of an impact on your financial health but I'd try to avoid any consumer debt at all once that is paid off. You've got some high fees within those 401k plans. I'd stick to the lower cost funds. For his 401k I'd go with the Schwab 500 Index Fund and Vanguard Total Bond Market. For your 403b I'd go with Vanguard Total Bond, Total Stock, and International Index (the 3-fund portfolio, you are quite lucky to have these funds available).

2. Not sure about this one, I'd be tempted to keep it in the lowest cost fund available but that is a pure stock fund and I'm guessing you want to be more conservative with this money. If that's the case a fund with a higher ER but one that holds bonds might be better for you.

3. I think you and your husband should contribute to backdoor Roths when able. I think it probably makes more sense for you to hold off right now. I think the interest rate on the student loans merits knocking those out on an accelerated schedule. Not sure how much house you plan on buying, but keep in mind on top of the down payment there are closing costs, filing fees etc. that will require more cash to brought to the table upon closing. Not sure how much they are in CA but I know in NY they are between 3-5% of the purchase price. When you do start a backdoor Roth contribute to whatever fund/funds maintains your desired AA.

I would narrow the fund count to around 6 at the most. Right now you own 17 different funds. Keep in mind that once you determine your (his and hers combined) allocation you don't need duplicate funds in each account. Pick the best in each account.

Showing up at the donut shop at 5 am to get them hot out of the oil is an example of successful market timing.

Below shows you a simple and Boglehead type way you could set up your portfolio. This follows the three fund portfolio. It diversifies you with total US market and total international market index funds. It keeps the expenses rock bottom. FYI, it you combine the 500 index with the extended market index at an 80/20 ratio you get a replicated total stock market fund.

Taxable:9.22% Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (at $10,000 this can be converted to admiral shares)

Welcome to the forum! My comments are similar to others' comments. You don't need that many funds, you have chosen some funds that are more costly than necessary, and your 5.5% loan should take precedence over the Roth IRAs for sure and maybe some of the 401k/403b investing.

What is the money in the taxable account for? If it is not for retirement, it should not be included in this calculation. For the time being, I'll leave it, but you might consider putting that money on the 5.5% loan. You definitely should not be putting more money into a taxable account for retirement until all the debt is paid.

This is a basic 3 fund portfolio (using 5 funds to achieve it ) set at 80% stock, 20% bonds with 30% of stock (24% of portfolio) in international. It is tax-efficient, low cost and covers all the necessary bases. You would exhange what you currently have into this allocation and then maintain it with your contributions.

Contributions = $40k (guess since we don't know what the 4% match and additional 5% are)

It seems like something might be left off this list, but I didn't look up the tickers on them all. Is there some kind of stable value fund or short term bond or something? If not I'd use a conservative blend of Dodge & Cox Income DODIX and Vanguard Large Cap since this money should not be aggressively invested - you want it to be there when you need it.

3) If my husband and I were to each contribute to backdoor IRA, should I put the money in stocks? If so, increase my allocation to bonds in our 401K/403b?

You should get some Roth IRA assets at some point, but not while you have this 5.5% debt looming in the background. You cannot guarantee a 5.5% return in any investment you put into the Roth. Therefore, paying the debt (a guaranteed 5.5% return) is the better choice.

In fact, you might want to decrease your 401k/403b savings from $40k to $20k (ish) until the debt is paid. Be sure to invest enough to get the employer match in Her plan.

Thank you so much for all your advice. Yes, I agree that I have too many funds on my 403b. A year ago, I didn't know about expense ratios or anything really, so I made kind of a mess.

retiredjg wrote:Welcome to the forum! My comments are similar to others' comments. You don't need that many funds, you have chosen some funds that are more costly than necessary, and your 5.5% loan should take precedence over the Roth IRAs for sure and maybe some of the 401k/403b investing.

What is the money in the taxable account for? If it is not for retirement, it should not be included in this calculation. For the time being, I'll leave it, but you might consider putting that money on the 5.5% loan. You definitely should not be putting more money into a taxable account for retirement until all the debt is paid. The money in the taxable account is for retirement. After I read the boglehead book and visited this forum, I went and opened a taxable account with Vanguard and set up a biweekly contribution as a way to prevent my husband and I from spending our money on clothes/going out/etc. At the time, I had been in school for so long that I felt like I was way behind the curve in terms of saving for retirement. After having visited this forum multiple times, I knew that I should be paying off my school loans. However, I just felt like it would take an eternity to pay off the loan. I think I have been trying to ignore the loan and was just making monthly payments (with plans of paying it off in 10 years) instead of facing it head on. To make a long story short, I will hold off on contributing to the taxable account and use that money to pay off more of my school loans.

This is a basic 3 fund portfolio (using 5 funds to achieve it ) set at 80% stock, 20% bonds with 30% of stock (24% of portfolio) in international. It is tax-efficient, low cost and covers all the necessary bases. You would exhange what you currently have into this allocation and then maintain it with your contributions.Yes! Thank you so much for helping me consolidate. This looks so much more manageable. Thank you thank you!

Contributions = $40k (guess since we don't know what the 4% match and additional 5% are)

It seems like something might be left off this list, but I didn't look up the tickers on them all. Is there some kind of stable value fund or short term bond or something? If not I'd use a conservative blend of Dodge & Cox Income DODIX and Vanguard Large Cap since this money should not be aggressively invested - you want it to be there when you need it.

3) If my husband and I were to each contribute to backdoor IRA, should I put the money in stocks? If so, increase my allocation to bonds in our 401K/403b?

You should get some Roth IRA assets at some point, but not while you have this 5.5% debt looming in the background. You cannot guarantee a 5.5% return in any investment you put into the Roth. Therefore, paying the debt (a guaranteed 5.5% return) is the better choice. Yes, you're totally right. I will wait on the Roth IRA and concentrate on paying off the loans. It's so crazy, I read boglehead posts regularly. And when someone says "pay off your loans first", I'm like "duh". But I couldn't apply the same advice to myself until someone told me directly.

In fact, you might want to decrease your 401k/403b savings from $40k to $20k (ish) until the debt is paid. Be sure to invest enough to get the employer match in Her plan.